In Gourmet:
> Now, you cynical lot may be wondering, who would describe a cucumber as “transcendent†under any circumstances?
and in the Seattle Times:
[Parsnips — when prime time is past, purée is the perfect solution](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2008584999_pacificptaste04.html)
> There’s no reason to remove the woody core as long as you pass the purée through a sieve. Coring parsnips is a big pain. Also, cream is awesome.
In my imagination, I am starring in a new Food Network show called _Gourmet Prowler._ On each episode, I break into someone’s house and have to make myself a gourmet meal of whatever I find in their kitchen.
I came up with this idea because there are eight legs of duck confit aging in the fridge, and I pointed out to Laurie that this would constitute the jackpot for any gourmet prowler. I’ll let you know how the confit turns out in a couple weeks when it’s ready.
P.S.: The confit is aging in the traditional vessels of Gascony, made by _La Jeune Fille de Caoutchouc._
For reasons that I can’t begin to explain, Iris and her cousin Kylie came to me and asked me to write a homework assignment with questions for someone studying to be a detective. The first question I came up with was:
**What is something red you would find at a crime scene?**
They took the worksheet down the hall and Kylie read the question. “Pepperoni!” said Iris.
“That’s my kind of crime scene,” said Iris’s uncle Scott.
Fortunately, the cousins discussed the matter and came up with a much more likely answer, which they scrawled on the sheet:
TOMATO.
I can also report that a detective’s favorite sandwich is PB&J, and that in a fight between a pirate and a detective, the pirate would win.
It’s only been nine years or so that I’ve been complaining about my rice cooker. It cooks good rice, most of which sticks to the pot and has to be soaked off. I got tired of waiting for it to die after I read in the Washington Post that rice cookers tend to last for thirty years, so I put a new rice cooker on my Christmas list.
I ended up with the mellifluously-named Panasonic SR-G06FG, and tonight it made its maiden voyage, producing Japanese-style rice for teriyaki chicken night.
It worked great. I was surprised to find that this model doesn’t have a keep-warm function, but I don’t think I care. The rice sat for 30 minutes before dinner, and it wasn’t cold. I was even more surprised to find that it was no joke to say that most of the rice stuck to the old rice cooker: I made my usual 1.5 cups (real cups, not the cup that comes with the cooker) of rice, and instead of it being just enough for the three of us, it was absurdly too much. Cleanup was a snap, too.
People on Amazon report that the nonstick coating on this model tends to start flaking off after a year or so, and you can’t buy just the bowl. I hope that doesn’t happen, but if it does, I will probably break down and buy one of the expensive Zojirushi models.
Speaking of which, why does Zojirushi sell over 30 models of rice cooker? I’ll bet Steve Jobs eats a lot of rice. Could they get him to come in and take over the company long enough to consolidate the line into three smart-looking rice cookers? Prices would start at just $599.
(P.S.: Zojirushi actually sells a rice cooker that lists for $373. Alas, poor comedy.)
Iris has declared that her favorite fish is no longer mackerel, it’s trout. This doesn’t strike me as an improvement, but you can’t pick your friends’ favorite fish.
So I’ve been buying rainbow trout, which is not exciting, but it’s relatively inexpensive and sustainable. Sometimes I roast it whole, but often I fillet and saute it, and if I ask the fish counter guy to fillet it, (a) I never know what I’m going to get, and (b) Iris is disappointed, because she likes to see the whole fish. Probably I am being too hard on the fish counter guys, but I still haven’t recovered from the time I asked them to scale a piece of salmon and they had no what I meant.
Anyway, my filleting technique is not exactly going to get me on Iron Chef, so I consulted YouTube and came up with this English guy:
One minute and 46 seconds later, I pulled out my honesuki and did my best filleting job ever.
Has YouTube ever saved your dinner?